When Lu Yunchu ran back to the yard, Wen Zhan was following her instructions and basking in the sun on time.
The sunlight was warm and made him drowsy. He could hardly keep his eyes open.
He caught a glimpse of a figure running towards him. He opened his eyes and saw that it was Lu Yunchu. He quickly stood up with the help of a pillar and walked towards her quickly with a concerned look.
Lu Yunchu looked at him steadily, feeling mixed emotions as he thought about his own judgment.
She shook her head to indicate that she was fine, and said to Wen Zhan, "Come in."
Wen Zhan was relieved to see that there were indeed no signs of injuries on her body and followed her into the house.
Lu Yunchu asked him: "How is your injury?"
Wen Zhan knew that she was worried, and wrote seriously: I'm fine now, I take medicine every day.
Lu Yunchu stared at the notebook handed to him by Wen Zhan for a long time without saying a word, and intuitively sensed that he was lying.
She raised her head and looked directly at Wen Zhan: "Wen Zhan, would you lie to me?"
Wen Zhan's eyelashes trembled, and he lowered his eyes to hide his gaze.
Lu Yunchu reached out and pulled up his sleeve and looked at his wrist. Just as Wen Zhan said, he had applied the medicine well, and the powder covered the wound, so the specific situation could not be seen clearly.
Lu Yunchu thought about it and said to Wen Zhan, "Take off your clothes."
Wen Zhan looked up in surprise, with a hint of panic in his eyes.
"Your injury hasn't healed yet, right?" Lu Yunchu asked.
Wen Zhan lowered his head and remained silent.
Lu Yunchu asked again, "You said you applied the medicine properly, but what about the wound on your back?" She held Wen Zhan's sleeve and showed him the wound on his wrist. "If the injury is healing so slowly, the wound on your back must not be at the stage where you don't need to apply the medicine."
She was standing so close to him, and no matter how much Ren Wenzhan lowered his head, she could see the helplessness in his eyes as soon as she raised her head.
Lu Yunchu put down his sleeves and softened his tone: "Are you afraid that I will worry?"
Wen Zhan pursed his lips but still didn't take out paper or pen, which meant he didn't want to answer.
Lu Yunchu stopped questioning him and pulled him to the inner room: "Go inside, it's warmer inside."
Wen Zhan followed behind her, feeling very nervous.
She walked to the bed and said to him, "Take it off and let me see your back."
Wen Zhan didn't move.
Lu Yunchu approached her and touched his collar with his fingers: "Do you want me to do it myself?"
Wen Zhan's breathing suddenly became disordered. He looked at Lu Yunchu helplessly, with a pleading look in his eyes.
"It's okay, let me see." She softened her voice, and her words were like a gust of wind winding around his ear. Wen Zhan subconsciously turned his head to avoid the disturbing throbbing.
He grabbed his collar and took out a pen and paper from his sleeve, making a final struggle.
—The wound is ugly and will pollute your eyes.
Lu Yunchu almost laughed when he saw this line: "Why didn't you tell me that it was almost time for dinner? Afraid that I would lose my appetite after reading this and not be able to eat?"
Her words were teasing, but Wen Zhan didn't mean to be joking. He listened to her carefully, his eyelashes trembling slightly, and nodded gently.
Lu Yunchu gradually tried to understand his mentality. He was always afraid of causing trouble and unhappiness to her, and thought that his existence was a burden to her. Just like being afraid of light after staying in the dark for a long time, he always felt timid when facing her.
If words can't convince him, let actions and time prove it.
Lu Yunchu picked up the medicine bottle on the bedside and said to him, "Come here, I'll apply the medicine on you. If you do this again, I'll be angry."
This hit Wen Zhan's weak spot. He walked over and sat down beside the bed, hesitantly undressing, with several layers of clothes hanging askew on his shoulders. He really didn't have the courage to take them all off.
"Take it off." Her tone became stern.
Wen Zhan's body stiffened, and he climbed onto the bed obediently, knelt on it, and took off his clothes.
His clothes fell off, piling up around his waist. Because he had not seen the sun for many years, his skin was very pale, like snow, with a fragile feeling that would melt at the touch. He had broad shoulders and a narrow waist, and was thin and handsome. In the daytime, his wounds were clearly visible, crisscrossed, and not at all like the "ugly" he said. Instead, this kind of ravaged beauty made people feel extremely pitiful.
Even though there was a burning coal in the house, he shivered with cold from suddenly taking off his clothes.
As he breathed, his shoulder blades rose and fell, and the scars on his face rose and fell with them.
"Not well." Lu Yunchu knelt behind him and touched a patch of skin on his back that had no scars. "Why did you lie to me?"
Wen Zhan was unprepared for her sudden touch. His body stiffened, and all his attention was focused on that spot.
Lu Yunchu carefully examined his wound. It had not worsened, but it was not much better than before. She was worried that her guess was true, and she hoped that it was because Wen Zhan did not take good care of himself that the injury did not get better.
"Didn't you promise me to take good care of yourself?" Lu Yunchu's tone dropped. "I can't see the injuries on your body, so you don't care about them, right? You just pretend to be serious when I can see them?"
Because she was heartbroken, her words were filled with a faint resentment. Wen Zhan was a little scared and wanted to turn around to see her expression, but before he turned around, he suddenly felt a chill on his back.
The powder fell on the wound, feeling cold. Her movements were extremely gentle, her fingertips passed over the wound, occasionally touching the good skin without wounds.
Her movements were so gentle that they made him tremble. He felt like shuddering, but this was inappropriate, so he could only grit his teeth and try to suppress it.
Her fingertips started at the shoulder blades, moved down, past the narrow waist, across the hollow of the back, and finally stopped at the beginning of the hip line.
The torture finally stopped and Wen Zhan breathed a sigh of relief.
With every inch he slid, his breathing became disordered, and in the end he didn't know how to breathe.
He felt his stomach numb and bloated, and his heartbeat hidden in his chest was pounding wildly, as if it would jump out in the next second. This feeling was really unfamiliar. He reached out to press his heart, but even his hand was numb and had no strength. He really couldn't understand what was wrong with him.
He heard Lu Yunchu say: "If your original intention was not to make me feel bad, then you are totally wrong. I am very sad when you do this."
The word "sad" suddenly pierced into his stubborn heart. It no longer wanted to jump out of his heart and show its fangs and claws, but suddenly calmed down and was filled with something sweet and astringent. He put down his hand, and even his fingertips trembled because of this helplessness.
Her fingertips were still moving, touching the wound with the powder. No extra movements were needed, and no magic medicine was needed. All the pain was wiped away easily, and a fresh and strange feeling was injected into it.
There was a long whip mark between his waist and hips. Lu Yunchu was terrified and applied the medicine more gently, sliding from the head of the mark to the waist.
Wen Zhan suddenly bent forward, his shoulder blades rising and falling with his breathing, with a slightly large and hurried amplitude. His hands hanging at his knees wrinkled the cloth of his clothes.
Lu Yunchu stopped moving, half distressed and half complaining: "Didn't you say it didn't hurt?"
Wen Zhan could only answer her with a slight tremor. He was a little scared, afraid that he would turn into a pool of molten lava.
She seemed to be talking to herself, murmuring, "I often wonder what is real and what is fake. I don't know if it was Zhuang Zhou dreaming of being a butterfly, or the butterfly dreaming of Zhuang Zhou." She applied powder to the last wound, "But I know that my sadness at this moment is real, and you that I touched are real."
Wen Zhan's mind was in a mess, and a thin layer of sweat appeared on the tip of his nose. He felt that all the sounds in the world had disappeared, leaving only her soft voice and his deafening heartbeat.
She suddenly patted his shoulder and said, "The medicine is ready."
He suddenly came to his senses, immediately picked up the clothes piled around his waist and abdomen, and hurriedly put the clothes on his body.
Lu Yunchu held him down and chuckled helplessly: "Are you going to wipe off all the medicine I just applied?"
Wen Zhan froze. This feeling was terrible. He was flustered and awkward, but there was also a hint of sinful sweetness that was hard to suppress.
Lu Yunchu moved in front of him and tore off the silk ribbon that tied the bed curtain. The surroundings suddenly fell into silence, peaceful and quiet. A thin layer of bed curtain cut off the chaos and absurdity of the outside world, creating a small world for them to live in.
She then finished her unfinished words: "Just like now, we are quietly huddled in this little world, I feel very at ease, why should I worry about whether it is true or not?"
Wen Zhan was no longer trembling and panicking. He slowly raised his eyes and finally met her gaze. This action made him seem extremely docile, like a small animal cautiously poking its head out.
His eyes were dark and bright, filled with conflicting emotions. In his heart there was shyness that he could not conceal, as well as fear and timidity due to inferiority, but what his eyes revealed was the most irrepressible heartbeat.
Lu Yunchu lifted his clothes for him and gently helped him put them on layer by layer. Finally, he bent over and slowly fastened his belt for him.
She looked at Wen Zhan and thought of the waning moon that day. She hadn't noticed these things in her previous two lives, and she just felt like she was trapped in a game with no end, and she was never afraid. In this life, she discovered them, but she was only timid for a short moment, and then she was full of strength the next moment, because she had experienced the struggles of two lives, and finally met Wen Zhan.
"I will not be afraid, I will not be vulnerable, and I will not retreat." She said to Wen Zhan, regardless of whether he could understand or not, "So you can be honest with me without any scruples."
Wen Zhan smiled.
He couldn't remember how long he had been sitting in the darkness, and would be immersed in the darkness for a long, long time.
In the blur and chaos, one day, a man stumbled in, sat next to him, gave him a candy, and said to him, "It's so quiet here."
Only then did he realize that fate could give him such a great gift.